Shinya Aoki's Blogs

One of the best get-out-of-jail free cards is tenure. The longer
you’ve been around, and the more you’ve dug your heels into a
relationship, the more leeway you have to screw up.

A fart on a first date is bad. A fart after three years into
marriage is just another Thursday.

What happened in the closing moments of Strikeforce’s second CBS
telecast Saturday comes without the security of long-term
placement. CBS, burned once by the bizarre behavior of EliteXC
employees, found itself devoting primetime minutes to Nick Diaz,
Jake
Shields, and a dozen other Cesar
Gracie shirts descended on Jason Miller
after shoves were exchanged and egos bruised. It was awkward, ugly,
and hard to recover from.

This kind of schoolyard stuff is not at all out of character for
impassioned athletes who are running high on macho-bravado
posturing and adrenaline. Baseball teams have swarmed one another;
some get rushed with a bat. NBA players have elbowed, kicked, and
occasionally assaulted fans in the stands. (Never with bats, but
give it time.)

Ball sports, however, have the benefit of history. We’ve never
known a world without basketball, football, or boxing, and the idea
that any few individuals could sink a national pastime is never
given any thought. The sports columnists will scold the offenders,
the footage will get some airplay, and it’s business as usual
within the week. Boxing can even kill its participants (three in
2009 alone, if you’re keeping track) without much fuss.

MMA does not have this luxury. As a result, scenes like this --
which, if we’re being honest, are entertaining in their absurdity
-- do nothing to enforce the idea this is an activity that deserves
to occupy the public consciousness. Instead of offering perspective
on his impressive, gutsy comeback win over Dan
Henderson, Shields is instead left to explain why his site of
victory turned into a scene from “West Side Story.”

MMA is still very much in the courtship stage of its relationship
with the sports world. As of Sunday morning, it ran out of gas on a
pretty major highway. Read more

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki
did not mince words when asked how his lopsided defeat to Gilbert
Melendez reflected upon the state of Japanese mixed martial
arts.

“The result of the fight says everything,” Aoki said through his
translator.

Dominated for five rounds, Aoki had no answer for Melendez in the
Strikeforce “Nashville” co-main event on Saturday at the
Bridgestone Arena. A 28-year-old Cesar
Gracie protégé, Melendez bullied him standing and on the
ground, shredding the guard of one of the sport’s most feared
ground fighters with tactical offense and savvy positioning. Aoki
entered his stateside debut as the consensus number two lightweight
in the world, the weight of a nation resting upon his
shoulders.

“A lot of people may say Japanese MMA lost,” Aoki said. “I will
train hard and hopefully be back. I lost completely.”

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker called the matchup, which resulted from
a co-promotional effort with Japan’s Fighting and Entertainment
Group, a “milestone” in mixed martial arts history. Aoki’s
immediate future carries with it some certainty, as he expects to
defend his Dream crown against Tatsuya
Kawajiri this summer. Beyond that, he admits he would welcome a
second crack at Melendez, perhaps in Japan.

“At this moment, I’d like to face Gilbert again,” said Aoki, who
had not lost a decision in nearly five years. “I want to be a
better fighter, so Gilbert will say, ‘I want to fight against Aoki
again.’” Read more

With the dissolution of Pride and much of the big-ticket Japanese
scene, the UFC has experienced virtually no major defections of
talent in the past five years. Tito Ortiz
threatened, but eventually relented; Fedor
Emelianenko, the highest-profile missing person, was never
theirs to begin with.

What is remarkable about Saturday’s Strikeforce card (their second
for CBS) is that it will feature the first Zuffa-endorsed,
highly-visible, highly-competitive athlete to walk away from that
promotion.

Dan
Henderson, while not nearly the draw of major UFC stars like
Brock
Lesnar and Georges
St. Pierre, has still benefited enormously from the UFC’s
promotional pull. His appearance against Michael
Bisping at July’s UFC 100 was seen by a record 1.5 million
pay-per-view households; The Wrestling Observer estimates 16
million people in total watched that event. He also notched a
free-TV title merger (a loss) with Quinton
Jackson in 2007. The only thing he missed was “The Ultimate
Fighter” coaching position. To some minds, that’s probably a good
thing.

Henderson now becomes a rare entity for a competing promotion: a
face already familiar to fans. If he draws attention and becomes a
dominant champion, Strikeforce’s investment will be seen as
strategic and worthwhile. If he siphons energy from the crowd and
tosses a brick, they’ll be mocked -- especially by Dana White -- as
free-spending failures. It’s a lesson in how fragile the MMA
business really is: any executive lauded for their deal-making is
still at the mercy of the guys in the ring. Read more

CBS will step up its efforts to advertise its Saturday broadcast of
Strikeforce
“Nashville” with additional 30-second promo spots airing in
commercial slots around its top-rated shows all week.

A 30-second “I Am a Fighter” spot featuring Strikeforce lightweight
champion Gilbert
Melendez will air during breaks for Sunday’s “Undercover Boss,”
which has been the No. 1 rated show in its timeslot for the last
month, averaging 13 million viewers each week. Additional spots
featuring middleweight champion Jake Shields
and his April 17 opponent, Dan
Henderson, will be added throughout the week.

A CBS official told Sherdog.com that the commercials will promote
the “human interest” angle of all three fighters. Melendez’s spot
will focus on his close relationship with his father, who has
managed and cornered his son for years in the sport. Melendez
defends his Strikeforce title against Dream lightweight champion
Shinya
Aoki on Saturday.

CBS began airing advertisements for its second Strikeforce
broadcast during the NCAA basketball tournament, which began on
March 16.

Strikeforce “Nashville” airs on Saturday live from the Bridgestone
Arena in Nashville, Tenn., beginning at 9:00 p.m. EST/PST. Read more

I do not envy fighters, who are expected to be barbaric enough to
twist and torque each other’s limbs until screaming or surgery is
imminent, but not so barbaric they can’t hug afterward. The line
between respect and sadism is a mile wide, yet they’re expected to
navigate it in a matter of moments. Tough gig.

Occasionally, some deeply disturbing behavior will leak through.
We’ve seen it in B.J. Penn
(licking an opponent’s blood off his gloves), Renato
Sobral (holding on to a choke for a beat too long), and
Mike
Kyle (hitting after referee intervention). The post-fight
adrenaline dump responsible for these actions is also at fault for
last week’s display of callousness by Shinya Aoki,
who bent Mizuto
Hirota’s arm until it snapped and then pranced around the ring
in glee --stopping only to hover over Hirota and shove a middle
finger in his face. This is not the kind of footage you hope ends
up on “SportsCenter.”

And yet I suspect that some of us were entertained by it because it
broke up the banality of post-fight camaraderie: hugging, smiles,
hand-raises, back-patting. Aoki did not cause any further harm to
Hirota after the fight was called; Aoki’s body -- like most
fighters -- was racked with endorphins. He was more or less
intoxicated. If he spent two or three days reflecting, then
traveled to Hirota’s hospital room to fling a bedpan at him, I’d be
more inclined to assign fault.

The upside for those disturbed or annoyed by Aoki’s juvenile
reaction is that he’s the minority: most fighters are respectful
and congratulatory. (Some, like Fedor
Emelianenko, appear to have no chemical reaction at all, which
is almost equally alarming.) So what if Aoki’s a big jerk? It’s all
part and parcel for this sport’s appeal: you can like the villains,
or you can wait for someone to kick their tail. In an arena where
you can get your face caved in at any time, no bad deed goes
unpunished for very long. If you think Aoki has got one coming,
you’ll almost certainly be satisfied. Read more

TOKYO -- Below are some choice quotes post-Dream 10 that were not
included in the notebook on the front page:

“I respect Aoki very much. I like his style of eliminating his
opponent’s strengths while asserting his own to get submissions.
I’d like to face him -- my striking techniques against his
grappling techniques. It’ll be one-hit kill meets certain death
grappling. If the fight happens, it’ll be very exciting. I think
that the next goal is to participate in the New Year’s Eve event.
If I need to fight one more fight before New Year’s Eve, I’ll do
it. I think it might be rude of me to challenge him, so maybe I
should fight and win a few more fights before I face him. But if
this fight is indeed offered to me, I would certainly take it.” --
Katsunori
Kikuno on the prospect of fighting Shinya
Aoki

SAITAMA, Japan -- Shinya Aoki
defeated Vitor
Ribeiro by unanimous decision at Dream 10 on Sunday at the
Saitama Super Arena and did so largely on the strength of his
stand-up.

“Muay Thai is interesting, right?” Aoki asked the crowd to a chorus
of boos. “Yeah, I expected boos. In October, I’ll have a title
fight, and on New Year’s Eve I will have my revenge.”

Aoki’s cryptic remarks were later confirmed by Dream event producer
Keiichi Sasahara, who revealed that Aoki will meet Dream
lightweight champion Joachim
Hansen on Oct. 6 in what will serve as the rubber match between
the two.